Hours 50 - 51: Killing Spree

I decided to devote the next two hours to completing as many Dark Brotherhood quests (i.e. assassinations) as possible. I fast-traveled as much as possible,and didn't hang around much. The only exception is that I did spend a bit of time talking to my fellow guild-members about some of the assassinations, as they mostly had something interesting to say.

The first two missions went by smoothly. Each mission requires you to assassinate a target, and there is an extra stipulation for each mission which, if fulfilled, will earn you an extra bonus. I managed to do six missions in the two hours. The first involved killing a pirate captain, and the next staging an 'accidental' killing. I failed to avoid detection and lost the bonus for that one.

Next, I had to break into the Imperial Prison and kill an inmate - and kill no guards. I gained access through the extensive sewer network. My 'drain life 100' spell proved invaluable here, as it allowed me to kill the numerous rats and mudcrabs which infest the sewers with virtually no hassle and no mana expenditure - they die to one cast.

Once I entered the prison, I began to sneak around, but always got seen and attacked by the guards. I reloaded from the prison entrance a few times, until I had the thought of simply sprinting my way past all the guards, using my increased speed and agility to avoid their blows. It worked! I ran all the way through the prison, with about give guards hot on my heels, but they just couldn't keep up with me. I reached the target, cast Immolate, and then before the guards knew what had happened I had jumped back over their heads and was on my way back to the sewers. I soon lost them. This earned me a nice bonus - the Scales of Pitiless Justice, which provide permanent stat boots just by being in my inventory! I also earned an amulet called Cruelty's Heart from the next quest, providing a large boost to Willpower and Strength.

I haven't posted a summary of my character since I was level 6, ten levels ago, so now seems as good a time as any.

Level: 16
Health/magicka/fatigue: 152/330/239
Days passed: 91
Quests completed: 51
Creatures killed: 523
People killed: 219
Places found: 93

I forgot to take a picture of my 'Skills' page, I will try to remember to include that in a future entry. I would like to have more magicka - I am often depleted after a few spells, but overall I am happy with my stats. My personality is drained by the Scaled of Pitiless Justice, but that doesn't mater since I can Charm anyone 100% with a spell. I do remember that my Illusion skill is only at 45 (just 10 higher than when I was level 6) and it needs to be 75, I think, before I can start making use of Paralyze spells. Something I will try to work on.

I completed the next three assassinations with no trouble. I'm enjoying the Dark Brotherhood so far, and it's providing a nice change. It's also given me some much better equipment already than what I got from the Mage's guild. I sell off most of the 'stealth' equipment I gain, though, as since the prison mission I am not really bothering with it - I can rely on my speed, and my healing spells to heal myself if any stray blows connect as my pursuers try in vain to catch me. I can imagine it might be quite fun to do a 'speed run' of Oblivion some time

During one of the missions I paused to observe the night sky, which I'd never really paid attention to before. Behold!

Also, during the fifth quest (The Lonely Wanderer), I encountered the target's girlfriend, who turned out to be by far the most attractive (in fact the only attractive) looking female character in the game!

Hour 49: Hail Sithis!

As the new Archmage, I can instruct several of the lesser mages in the University to follow me (only one at a time, though). That could be fun, and I resolve to try it out some time. Another perk is that I get an enchanted chest which duplicates any ingredient ten times. This could potentially be quite a nice money-spinner - I'll have to investigate how lucrative it could be. For now though, I want to start the Dark Brotherhood quest-line, as I already have a fair bit of gold - over 15,000, I think. Back in hour 35, I murdered a vampire-hunter, and Lucien Lachance paid me a visit. He gave me the Blade of Woe and told me that if I kill a man by the name of Rufio, I will be accepted into their ranks.

Rufio is staying in the aptly-named Inn of Ill Omen. I creep into his unlocked room and murder him in his sleep. I then return to the Imperial City. I decide to walk back and enter it, for the first time, through its main entrance. On my way, I encounter quite a few Minotaurs, and stop to clear out Horn Cave, which also has a few Minotaurs and Wisps. Fighting these raging bulls in the narrow confined of a cave is more scary than outdoors. At one point, I have to escape the wrath of two of the beasts by using my water-walking boots to good effect and floating on an underground lake, where they can't get to me. I then pelt them with soul-sapping fireballs. 

The impressive grand entrance bridge to the Imperial City, with the Wawnet Inn on the left. Behind it, you can see White-gold Tower and the walls of the city itself. This entrance would be even more amazing if there were guards and crowds of people coming and going. If Oblivion has 10x the amount of NPCs that would be a start - I hope this is something which TES: VI is able to rectify, with the enhanced capabilities of the PS4 / Xbox One.

Lucien will visit me when I next rest in a location he deems secure. What better place than my very own Arch Mage's quarters? Sure enough, he visits me and bids me to enter the Dark Brother sanctuary in Cheydinhal. 

I enter the old Abandoned House and reach a forbidding-looking door in the basement:

I give the password and am granted entry. The guild chambers are full of all manner of assassins from every race, and I take the time to speak to all of them; not from a 'completionist urge', but because I really want to; as usual, Oblivion's dialogue and characters are far more engrossing than Skyrim's. 

Hour 48: King of Worms

Only I can now defeat the looming menace of the King of Worms. Perhaps I missed something, but my quest marker tells me exactly where to find him, and I'm not sure how I know this. Shouldn't there be some investigation required? Anyway, I head off to Echo Cave the slay the brute and put and end to his insidious cult of Necromancy. There's a necromancer outside the entrance called Bolor - I slay him and take the key to the entrance from him. Great plan, Wormy - lock the door and place a guard with the key right outside it, waiting to be slain. The Necromancers in the previous mission sealed their door with magic, why didn't you?!

Not only is the cave populated by Necromancers, there are also indigenous undead creatures. Here's a shot of my summoned Faded Wraith doing battle with a skeleton:

The skeleton (I think it's called a Skeleton Hero or possibly Skeleton Guardian) is glowing red because it has been hit by some sort of spell by the Wraith.

Eventually I reach Mannimarco himself (after crossing a cool unique-looking bridge with spiky bony protrusions). He engages me in haughty conversation, telling me he will reanimate me after my death so he can study the source of my power, then attacks me. His onslaught is ferocious but I rush in and cast Immolate a few times. He goes down surprisingly quickly, after a few casts, and his summoned minion/s (not sure if there were more than one, as I was focused on bringing him down) crumble with him.

I was expecting something a little more taxing from the so-called King of Worms. For his insolence, I strip him of his robes and staff. Here I am with his gear:

The Staff of Worms is even cooler looking than the Goblin Totem thing I had a while back. It can reanimate slain opponents for 30 seconds. Hmmm, if only there were a fallen, disgraced corpse lying around for me to reanimate. Oh, wait...

Not so tough now, are you, you insolent fool! Perhaps I'll study the source of your power. Oh that's right... you had none! Bwahahah! Now dance! Dance for your master, you wretch!

The staff looks like it could come in pretty handy in future (provided the reanimated corpse will fight for me, which remains to be seen). I return triumphant to the Arcane University. I have completed the Mages' Guild! I finished the Recommendations after 18 hours, and now, 30 hours later, I have finished all the guild quests. Of course, there were many distractions along the way, and I even started another guild for a while. Overall, I'd say it was a satisfying and epic-feeling experience. There were 7 Recommendation quests and 11 regular quests, most of which were enjoyable, and I felt this was a good amount and provided enough content to feel like a real progression from novice to Arch mage. Could it be improved? Definitely - it is only 11 quests, after all, and I could have completed them much more quickly. I'd love to see multiple sub-plots and maybe a branching quest system which could lead to enhanced replayability - imagine 20+ quests, which branch after 5 and 10 quests, giving you essentially 4 completely different quest-lines to complete, based on your choices. What if I could have joined Mannimarco's side and played another 10 quests trying to bring down the Mages' Guild? That would have been amazing. 

But of course, it's easy to say all that. More content would always be appreciated, but the quest-line I completed was still fun. The only other thing I'd really want from the quests would be some kind of ability progression unlocked by them. Most of the quests did not require me to even be a mage at all, and whatever power increase I gained after unlocking spell-making and enchanting after the Recommendation quests was really all my own doing. I would have liked some stat bonuses or better equipment, so that a mage who has done all the Mages Guild quests is really more powerful than a mage who hasn't.

I decide to head to the Arena and partake of a fight. I am given a choice of opponents - I choose the hardest set, two Ogres and a Land Dreugh. They go down easily. I've never seen a Land Dreugh in the wild - what the hell are they?

It looks like something from The Predator. It's larger than an Ogre and pretty terrifying-looking. I really feel Oblivion could do with some massive creatures. Apart from Mehrunes Dagon at the end of the main quest, the biggest things (I think) are Minotaurs, followed by these crab-things and then probably Ogres. Compare this to Dark Souls, which boasts numerous gigantic beasts. Even Skyrim only has Giants and Mammoths as large beasts, and they're not that big either.

Hours 46 - 47: Rising Through the Ranks

I must next retrieve the Necromancers Amulet, which has been stolen by guild members. Upon tracking them to a cave, I speak with their leader, Caranya, who reveals that she is in league with Mannimarco. I kill her with relative ease. I find a book called The Mystery of Princess Talara, Part IV, and read it. It's quite long, in face - about 20 pages or so if I recall correctly. I'll definitely keep my eyes peeled for the other parts of the book. I think having books like this (and in Oblivion, there are well over 200 of them!) adds so much to the game. You can quite easily go through the entire game without reading a book, but knowing they're there to peruse from time to time creates a lot of immersion. Certainly they're not the most astounding pieces of literature, but it's a nice touch all the same.

I then fight my way back out of the cave with the Amulet. The mages / necromancers fall to one, or sometimes two, casts of my 'Immolate' spell. I don't have much need of my Faded Wraith. 

Upon my return, I am promoted to Master Wizard - the highest rank! Unfortunately, I still get this response when talking to the other wizards who bustle past me in the Arcane University (apologies for the massive amount of screen-glare):

It's a little annoying. There's so much depth and so many nice touches in Oblivion that it feels churlish to complain, but when it comes to things like this I'd be so much happier if the responses of NPCs were multi-layered, and they responded to you differently as you rose through the ranks. It's similar in Skyrim, where you can, for example, be a high-ranking member in the Fighters' Guild, but still be sneered and and spoken to like a new-hire ("so you're the newest member, huh? So what do you do, bring the mead?" or something like that). It ruins the immersion a little. Bethesda giveth, and Bethesda taketh away.

As Master Wizard, I am sent on a dangerous assignment - to retrieve an enormous black soul gem from the clutches of the Necromancer cult. If Mannimarco gets his hands on it, all hope is lost. This mission is quite nice as it adds in something a bit different - I meet with three fellow mages and we lie in wait to ambush the group of Necromancers. Based on their preference for magic or combat, I have to decide whether they should wait near to the entrance (closer to the fray) or hang back. Errr... not exactly a complex tactical decision, but it's something different, at least.

After we defeat the first group of Necromancers, however, I am shocked that my comrades instruct me to enter the Necromancer's hideout to find the gem - and then don't come with me! Thanks a lot!? I battle my way through without much trouble (picking up a lot of potions on the way - I love Necromancers) and finally encounter Falcar - the ex-head of the Cheydinhal Mages Guild, who tried to have me drowned during my initiation! He's a pushover, though, and I nab the soul gem.

I return the gem to Archmage Traven, who explains that it will protect me against Mannimarco's influence. He then kills himself and his soul is transferred into the gem! Noooo!

I strip him of his robes to add them to my collection. Since, as per Traven's final instructions, I am Archmage now (!) I want to look the part. Unfortunately, his robes aren't enchanted or anything. He looks a bit too ripped for an old wizard, don't you think? He has a six-pack! Then again, I suppose wizards would just use alteration on themselves.

I settle into my new quarters. Traven's room is nice, with it's own altar of spellmaking and enchanting, a large double bed, and a teleporter to reach the mages' lobby. I then flounce around town for a bit - many of the mages now recognise me and call me Archmage (hooray!) and sell off my wares for a pretty penny, before readying myself for the final battle against Mannimarco - 'The King of Worms' (gross!)...

Hour 45: The Bloodworm Helm

I return to Traven, and he asks me to return two artefacts which were stolen by guild members in their panic to find ways to combat Mannimarco. The first of these is the Bloodworm Helm (I think Lady GaGa wore one of these at her last show...). I head off to an abandoned fortress in a distant, gloomy corner of the map. I have to footslog a long way to get there, and the terrain is murky and filled with large boulders:

These boulders prove to be a great help, though. I encounter my first Spriggan, but with my increased Acrobatics I am able to jump atop many of the boulders and stay out of close combat. The journey to the fortress actually takes quite a while as I encounter two Spriggans, a Troll, and an enraged 'Hedge Wizard' (?).

The fortress is overrun with Necromancers. Strangely, there also seems to have been a Daedra incursion, and many of the Necromancers are being attacked by Flame Atronachs and Clannfear demons. The Necromancers are a piece of cake, but the Daedra less so. Eventually I take to my heels with a mob of Daedra in pursuit. I arrive at the end of the fortress into a large 'pit' area. To my relief, I'm able to jump out of the pit, whilst the Daedra remain stuck. Two Clannfear, two Atronachs, and a Dremora, no less! It's a simple matter then of summoning my Faded Wraith into the pit a few times, who makes short work of them.

I return the Bloodworm Helm to Traven. I picked up a lot of loot from the fortress, including potions, and sell the gear for a few thousand. One item I won't be parting with, however, are the Water-walking boots I stole from the corpse of one of the Necromancers. Here I am, floating on the surface of a lake and enjoying the view:

Hour 44: Bruma Burning / The Spellslinger

I speak to Archmage Traven and he asks me to go and check on the Bruma guild, as they've gone quiet. When I get there, the guild hall is on fire and infested with wraiths!

I can take on the wraiths, but they do a lot of damage both at range and in combat, and are in groups of three, so it takes me a long time to whittle them down. Fortunately they're very stupid so I can focus one down at a time then retreat to a distant corner of the building to heal and rehearse my magicka, and they don't follow me.

The khajit J'skar is the only survivor of the Bruma guild, and he says he will head to the Imperial City. I follow him out of the city and realise he is actually physically walking there right now, so I decide to walk with him through the wilds. We're going on an adventure!

Unfortunately it isn't long before TWO bears come charging out of the woods and attack us. Well, me anyway. No worries, I suppose J'skar will help me out? No, he turns invisible and runs off. I am left fighting two angry bears, with my mana drained due to my Weakness to Fire spell repeatedly missing.    I resort to simply fleeing, but run straight into a band of goblins with pet zombies. Annoyingly, the bears and goblins appear to be on the 'same team' and they all pile after me like an angry mob. This little touch is quite frustrating, as it makes no sense, and if the bears had attacked the goblins it would have been much more satisfying.

They chase me half the way back to the Imperial City, but I eventually lose them since I can take short-cuts by jumping over large rocks, and they can't. Once I return to the Arcane University, Traven says the guild must adjourn once more in light of my findings, so I decide to have another crack at the Arena while they do so.

I plough through a few more opponents, though it seems that perhaps my messing about with rapidly increasing skills and levelling up may have come back to bite me, as many of the opponents are very hard to bring down and I have to waste a lot of potions, as well as hide on a pillar fairly often to heal myself. The most interesting match, though, is against a fellow spellcaster, who also fights in melee, and whose shield makes him invulnerable to spells (shame you're not allowed to loot the corpses after an Arena battle). I have to attack him in combat, and I only have the piddly Blade of Woe (oh yes! I forgot to mention - having 'murdered' one of the vampire hunters a few hours ago, I was visited by Lucien Lachance of the Dark Brotherhood, who gave me the aforementioned dagger and asked me to join their assassins' guild. I haven't taken up his offer yet but will do so in the future. Here's a shot I took of Lucien's wicked visage:)

I eventually bring the pesky Arena battle-Mage down by distracting him and summoning a Dremora behind him to do hack mercilessly at his back while I attempted to block his blows with my shield.

For the final Arena battle, a boar called Porkchop was sent to aid me in a fight against three enemies. In truth, he did most of the work, killing two of them while I pranced around missing with my spells and trying to heal myself. Porkchop survived the battle - here he is striding victoriously across the field of fallen foes:

At last, I got to challenge the Gray Prince for title of Grand Champion. I chose to be called The Spellslinger (a name I now regret, but oh well). The fight itself was a non-entity because he forfeited and asked me to kill him, due to my having completed the Crowhaven quest earlier. Despite this obvious match-fixing, the crowd went wild as I struck his deathblow, and I was named Grand Champion.

Hours 41 - 43: All Crows go to Haven

Who am I kidding? I'm not ready to cease my wanderings yet. I'm just getting started with the altar of spell-making! I also spend a while doing some research online about the 'best' way of increasing skills. I have it in mind that I want to be able to jump high - and I don't want to wait for the Boots of Spring Heel Jak either. I'll need a high Acrobatics level. I 'cheat' a bit and follow some instructions which basically say that if you can find somewhere to stand where your head almost touches the ceiling, you can repeatedly press jump and each jump will only last a split second, but you'll still get a 'point' for each one. As recommended, I stand on a book-case in the Chorrol Mages Guild, and it works very well. In what seems about fifteen minutes I level up my Acrobatics about 12 times. It could have been less than that, I'm not sure - but it got very boring of course and I stopped when my Acrobatics reached level 60.

What about just straight-up 'fortifying' my Acrobatics? I have a Fortify Attribute spell option, but not Fortify Skill. I look it up and it turns out I have to do the Gray Prince's quest to unlock this. So off I head to Crowhaven. The dungeon's a walkover and even the Vampire at the end falls to just one spell. The Gray Prince isn't happy with what I discover, but he trains me as thanks for helping him, and I unlock Fortify Skill. Via some fiddling around at the altar of spell-making, I create two spells which can run simultaneously and push my Acrobatics to the mid 130's, for 20 seconds. I'm pleased with the result - I really can jump incredibly high - not enough to jump clean over a building, but easily high enough to jump over people and some walls. One interesting perk is that because my Acrobatics is so artificially high, I can 'walk' on water (I can jump on it as if it's land). I mess around on water for a bit and then notice that from time to time, if I jump of the water but land on land, I'll stay stuck floating in the air like this:

From this position, I can 'float' above the ground and hover wherever I want, until I either pass over water again, or bump into higher ground, at which point I drop back to earth.

I also create several 'Drain Skill on Self' spells for various skills which I may wish to have training in. I cast 'Drain Restoration  95' on myself, then get an extra 5 levels of training from a woman in Cheydinal for a grand total of about 150 gold. Not bad! I level up, then do the same with Acrobatics, as there also happens to be an Acrobatics trainer nearby. I've been casting a lot of low-level spells whilst wandering about too, which has caused my Illusion and Conjuration skills to skyrocket. Due to all these shenanigans, I reach level 15:

I think it's peculiar how it states that 'there's no one stronger in Tamriel'. Really? At level 15? This is supposed to be your peak? I would have thought you're still supposed to be relatively fresh-faced at this stage. My character certainly feels it.

I've frittered away at least three hours - possibly more, I lost track of the time - fiddling around with various spell configurations and whatnot. Creating all these spells has drained my coffers and I only have a couple of thousand gold left. I'm also getting tired, and wary, of 'fiddling the numbers' on my skills and stats. That's it then, time to take on some more missions at last!